FILM SCREENING AND DISCUSSION: 9 NOVEMBER 4PM-6PM

The Margate School, Former Woolworth’s Building, 33 Lower High Street, Margate CT19 2DX

Screening of A Parable for Endeavour, a film by Us3, Clare Smith, Helen Lindon and Joanna Jones at 4pm

Filmed on location in Dover, A Parable for Endeavour was commissioned for SALT, Festival of the Sea and

Environment, Folkestone 2016 and previewed as part of the exhibition “As far as we can see” at The Lindon

Space.

Six eyes see more than two – add to that 5 camera eyes and this collaboration results in more than the sum of its

parts. Seen by the camera and unbeknown to two of the artists, the film starts as they set about preparing for a

performance.

As the film progresses it becomes ‘a Parable for Endeavour’...

'Funny, philosophical, visually stimulating with an extraordinary soundtrack'

'A surprising and mind-fizzing film revealing the making of delicate and intriguing work'

'A collaboration between shingle, brine, tide and three human beings'

'One the best ‘art’ films I’ve seen. Absolutely loved it.'

Stay on after the film with the artists for a discussion about sustaining a career in the arts.

How do you keep going over the long term? What does it take to sustain a life in the arts?

This is the first of 3 screenings to accompany Clare Smith’s exhibition of intimate black and white ink drawings in

The Line Gallery, inspired by visits to the beach and views of the sea.

The 3 films expand the individual practices of the artists, bringing together experimental film, expanded cinema,

painting, performance, drawing, sound, digital and material practice. The result is moving image born out of

experimental processes, collaboratively edited to reflect concerns about climate change, coastal erosion,

migration and movement of people, geological and human time and anything else the 3 turn their minds to in

conversation and image. https://www.us3studios.com.

The artists:

Joanna Jones graduated from Byam Shaw School in 1967 and from the Royal Academy Schools in 1970.

Her work is existential, it is not ‘about’ something it is itself created by an action and that action is mediated from

and with her body/being. Her practice over several decades has linked painting with performance. She has

developed a performative process that positions the body as an agency of a particular kind of knowing, producing

paintings which inform rather than express, present rather than represent and activate rather than portray, taking

painting into the territory of an event – a constitution of elements capable of making something happen. She has

maintained a similar approach with Dover Arts Development (DAD) an evolving work, inspired by the town of

Dover and co-founded with Clare Smith, that produces and co-creates projects of artistic excellence within the

visual arts, poetry and music. http://www.joannajones.co.uk

Helen Lindon’s work has been concerned with ecology and the environment since the 70’s. Her present

practice is making works on paper and films about Climate Change and Sea Level Rise. Her images could be of

a larger universe or looking through a microscope - patterns and images are replicated in both. Natural materials

- sea, rain water and carbon are used to make large scale drawings using tiny marks. These take hundreds of

hours and become for the artist and viewer a contemplation on climate change. While developing her art practice,

she worked as an Associate Lecturer at Byam Shaw, Central Saint Martins and London College of

Communication (all University of the Arts, London) and is presently developing new collaborations - making films

and live improvisations and performances with artists, choreographers and

musicians. https://www.helenlindon.co.uk

Clare Smith has a BA in Fine Art from UCA Canterbury in 2004 and an MA from Central St Martins in 2011. Her

mixed English/Chinese heritage informs her perspective on issues of identity and categorisation. Her nomadic

childhood and early adulthood have meant a somewhat ambivalent relationship to place, reinforced by the sense

of ambiguity that comes from her mixed identity. Smith works with drawing, print media, collage and moving

image to investigate this ambivalence and what it feels like to actually be in a place, with references to craft, the

importance of labour and the handmade. She is co-founder of Dover Arts Development (DAD) together with

Joanna Jones. http://www.studio308ltd.co.uk